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Cardi B to judge New Yorkers’ songs for Zohran Mamdani ‘Best Childcare Jingle’ contest
PoliticsMusic News•April 4, 2026 at 8:34 AMNational

Cardi B to judge New Yorkers’ songs for Zohran Mamdani ‘Best Childcare Jingle’ contest

By Laura Molloy•NME Music News

“Sometimes, us women, we can’t really go forward because we don’t have nobody to help us take care of our kids" The post Cardi B to judge New Yorkers’ songs for Zohran Mamdani ‘Best Childcare Jingle’ contest appeared first on NME.

Cardi B is set to judge New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani’s Best Childcare Jingle contest.

The songs will be written to promote Mamdani’s free childcare initiative for the city’s two-year-olds, which the administration is calling 2-K, similar to pre-K and 3-K for three-year-olds.

New Yorkers can submit a 15 or 30-second jingle to the NYC government website (here), which they must also post to social media with the tags #NYC2KJingle and @nycmayor.

The final date to submit a jingle is April 17, after which Cardi B will select five finalists, before New Yorkers pick the winner. “As Cardi B says: ‘I can get ’em both. I don’t wanna choose,’” Mamdani said in a statement.

“With universal childcare, New Yorkers won’t have to. For too long, families have been forced to choose between affordable care and staying in the city they love. Now, they can have both — free care in the greatest city in the world.”

In a video promoting the contest, Mamdani asks Cardi B what she thinks of free childcare. “I feel like free childcare is very important,” she says. “Sometimes, us women, we can’t really go forward because we don’t have nobody to help us take care of our kids.”

Mamdani was elected on November 4, and inaugurated on New Year’s Day with a performance of ‘Bread And Roses’ from Lucy Dacus.

Since then, Kim Petras has offered to send Zohran Mamdani her new album if he does one thing for New York City, and Michael Rapaport has declared that he will be running for mayor of New York City in 2029, in an attempt to oust the newly elected Mamdani.

Just days before the election at the end of 2025, Mamdani made headlines after he was spotted in the crowd at a PinkPantheress gig. The gig took place as the producer kicked off her ‘An Evening With PinkPantheress’ North American tour with a show at the Kings Theatre in Brooklyn.

Last month, Mamdani revealed his top five favourite rappers of all time.

The post Cardi B to judge New Yorkers’ songs for Zohran Mamdani ‘Best Childcare Jingle’ contest appeared first on NME.

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